Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP here.

I'm not a student, I'm a foreigner trying to understand the American method of ranking colleges and universities.

In my country there is no "college experience" because there are no campuses. No sports teams. There are some student dorms around certain universities, and low-cost student cafeterias, but mostly students try to find rooms somewhere around the university. There are no fraternities and sororities, very few clubs. Universities are ranked by the quality of teaching: how good the teachers are, how well-funded the programs are, what type of research is done. "School spirit" is not a factor - students want a prestigious degree, but prestige is based on academic prestige and possibly how well-connected the student and professors are in general, although that's mostly reserved for political sciences and things like that.

So... if you take out factors that have to do with sports, leisure, student social life, and keep factors that have to do with quality of learning and teaching...

What do you think would be the ranking of the top US universities? I thought Hopkins was among the best, but perhaps I'm wrong.

OP, it's a fair question. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. university system, especially at the top, is flush with money, so things like educational prestige, teaching quality, research, are a given -- in fact, they're among the best in the world (if not the best). So all the other trappings that you mention are what add to the American college experience; they are not there in lieu of the academics and intellectual output.

Roughly, the "rankings" of the tippy top US colleges goes somewhat like this:

Tier AAA+: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT (some would maybe add Columbia to this tier)
Tier AAA: Columbia, UPenn, UChicago, Northwestern, Duke, Caltech
Tier AA: Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Johns Hopkins
Tier A: Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UMichigan

Something that is good to keep in mind is that there is a much higher number of "elite" schools in the U.S. than most other countries, again largely due to the aforementioned wealth concentrated at the top, as well as the general gravity that America commands in the world of academia.

Anonymous wrote:
OP here.

I'm not a student, I'm a foreigner trying to understand the American method of ranking colleges and universities.

In my country there is no "college experience" because there are no campuses. No sports teams. There are some student dorms around certain universities, and low-cost student cafeterias, but mostly students try to find rooms somewhere around the university. There are no fraternities and sororities, very few clubs. Universities are ranked by the quality of teaching: how good the teachers are, how well-funded the programs are, what type of research is done. "School spirit" is not a factor - students want a prestigious degree, but prestige is based on academic prestige and possibly how well-connected the student and professors are in general, although that's mostly reserved for political sciences and things like that.

So... if you take out factors that have to do with sports, leisure, student social life, and keep factors that have to do with quality of learning and teaching...

What do you think would be the ranking of the top US universities? I thought Hopkins was among the best, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Anonymous wrote:
OP here.

I'm not a student, I'm a foreigner trying to understand the American method of ranking colleges and universities.

In my country there is no "college experience" because there are no campuses. No sports teams. There are some student dorms around certain universities, and low-cost student cafeterias, but mostly students try to find rooms somewhere around the university. There are no fraternities and sororities, very few clubs. Universities are ranked by the quality of teaching: how good the teachers are, how well-funded the programs are, what type of research is done. "School spirit" is not a factor - students want a prestigious degree, but prestige is based on academic prestige and possibly how well-connected the student and professors are in general, although that's mostly reserved for political sciences and things like that.

So... if you take out factors that have to do with sports, leisure, student social life, and keep factors that have to do with quality of learning and teaching...

What do you think would be the ranking of the top US universities? I thought Hopkins was among the best, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 8 most important schools for the United States are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Annapolis, West Point, Hopkins and Stanford. Hopkins is the number one research institution by a wide margin.

This is woefully misinformed and deeply wishful thinking from a Johns Hopkins booster.

It's a good school. It's not at the level of HYPSM. (Yes, you missed out on MIT)

Probably on the same tier as Northwestern and Brown/Cornell. Below Columbia/Penn/Duke and UChicago/Dartmouth. But preference-wise probably ranks dead last among top elite privates.

I'd still put Hopkins a half tier below Northwestern as well as Brown/Cornell/Dartmouth (not sure why you put Dartmouth at the same level as UChicago... lol). A good school with an excellent school, but it's similar to UChicago and UC Berkeley in that it's primarily a grad-focused research institution, less a comprehensive undergrad-focused university of the likes which comprise the top elites.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 8 most important schools for the United States are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Annapolis, West Point, Hopkins and Stanford. Hopkins is the number one research institution by a wide margin.

This is woefully misinformed and deeply wishful thinking from a Johns Hopkins booster.

It's a good school. It's not at the level of HYPSM. (Yes, you missed out on MIT)

Probably on the same tier as Northwestern and Brown/Cornell. Below Columbia/Penn/Duke and UChicago/Dartmouth. But preference-wise probably ranks dead last among top elite privates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see we have some Hopkins rejects on this thread.

Rejected by Hopkins and went to an Ivy, yes

Too bad that didn’t prevent you from being bitter and hostile.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopkins is a decent school, but it's plagued by a very stressful campus culture, and is frankly really only a good place for pre-med/biomed (but, again, incredibly stressful). Although an elite private school it consistently ranks as one of the least desirable.

JHU grads are some of the most prestige-obsessed and downright insecure folks I've met. The ones I knew saw it as a backup school and were quite eager to transfer out. Really lacking school spirit. It's like UChicago with a heavy grad presence and weak undergrad focus (for most of its history) but lacking the prestige or an illustrious history to back up its status as an ivy+ school. Maybe things have changed a bit with the rapid shift in the college admissions landscape but still nowhere nearly as desirable as the top institutions even with Bloomberg's record-setting donation.

Anonymous wrote:Hopkins is a decent school, but it's plagued by a very stressful campus culture, and is frankly really only a good place for pre-med/biomed (but, again, incredibly stressful). Although an elite private school it consistently ranks as one of the least desirable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 8 most important schools for the United States are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Annapolis, West Point, Hopkins and Stanford. Hopkins is the number one research institution by a wide margin.

This is woefully misinformed and deeply wishful thinking from a Johns Hopkins booster.

It's a good school. It's not at the level of HYPSM. (Yes, you missed out on MIT)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see we have some Hopkins rejects on this thread.

Rejected by Hopkins and went to an Ivy, yes

Anonymous wrote:Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:I see we have some Hopkins rejects on this thread.